Mom & Me Three Archive

...of retiring then arising again an hour or so later and staying up for a good hour or so. It's homey and nice. These periods are shared quiet time for us: She drinks a cup of coffee, I drink a cup of tea; she sits in her rocker and reads her magazines, I work on cataloguing more past journal entries; we discuss items of interest that we encounter; if I've forgotten to rub down her legs I do this, as I did last night; we talk about possibilities for the following day, then she retires.
    I've been meaning to comment on entries in arrears as I continue cataloguing, but I can't seem to pull myself away from the momentum of following our past days, one major episode to another. My intention is, now, to continue cataloguing until I'm caught up on this journal, then construct the Table of Contents. I'm making notes on things upon which I want to comment such as:

• The build-up to her blood transfusion;
• The build-up to her low sodium episode, which I'm now cataloguing (I'm in mid July of 2004);
• How circumstances are generally different than now and how they're surprising similar. Not that I'm expecting plunges in her present good, steady health but I'm astounded that, overall, except for blips here and there, her health and activity profile has remained the same over the last couple of years; this gives me a shot of confidence. I think the only aspect that has changed is my aspect: I've clearly become much more relaxed about her inactivity, even though I continue to harbor some minor anxiety about her muscles weakening.

    I'm not sure what we'll try to initiate, today. Maybe some exercises; I need to go to at least one grocery and as of late last night (she retired for the final time a little after 0100) Mom thought she might want to go, too.
    I've received all the books I mentioned ordering in a previous post. I've skimmed them, although I don't imagine I'll get around to reading them until I've finished cataloguing. I read something interesting and relieving in the Sick to Death book about how the profile of chronic disease due to organ failure in the elderly closely follows the pattern Mom is following: Extended periods of good to excellent functioning of the organ(s) in question followed by a usually sudden and fatal health crisis. Interesting. My intention is to seek permission from the authors of these books to quote passages I think are important. I'll report on how the permission seeking process goes.
    I just noticed that the url to my picture of Mom isn't translating now that the post is archived. Guess I'd better fix that.
    Later.